General CommentI do think these readings are too particular and as usual maiden always speaks of an internal climate, always what is really occurring within the mind in common behind the illusion of the material world. Again, having said that, my reading may prove to be highly personalized. I will try to keep it as general and abstract as possible.
I'd sail across the ocean
I'd walk a hundred miles
If I could make it to the end
Oh just to see a smile
The speaker is admitting a genuine wish, I'd endure an eternity of toil and turbulence if I could reach 'the end' is whatever condition, just to see just such a smile from you.

You see it in their faces
The sadness in their tears
The desperation and the anger
Madness and the fear
I do think that this is in reference to whomever is relatively in a state of obliviousness. You see unrest in their faces, sadness in their tears, desperation, frustration, perverseness, anguish and fright over not being able to breach the surface of reality.

No hope, no life, just pain and fear
No food, no love, just greed is here
Again, they suffer no sense of hope, no life in a certain sense, there is this greed which wells up. The way in which it is said in the song, has me second guessing myself as to what this greed is really over.

Starvation and the hunger
The suffering and the pain
The agonies of all-out war
When will it come again?
Unable to know what will bring replenishment, there is starvation, suffering, agonies from all-out war within, when will a sensation of clarity come again.

The struggle for the power
A tyrant tries again
Just what the hell is going on?
When will it ever end?
Here is that peculiar greed again, 'the TYRANT tries again' hmmmmm, 'just what the hell is going on' is right. Although the obliviate is struggling for power they wish their desire to become tyrant will come to an end. There is serious confusion at play here.

You see the full moon float
You watch the red sun rise
We take these things for granted
But somewhere someone's dying
Again, a sense of reality is lost. Everything is just as it appears to be and could be nothing other or more.
Why the song is called Childhood's End, I'm having trouble seeing stark correlations with the novel, is, I'll hazard a guess, is in that after the laissez-faire innocence of childhood one enters a vaporous state between actual innocence without being able to claim its rights and a lack of experience. Corruption comes easily in this sort of state.

General CommentI wonder if they were inspired Pink Floyd's song of the same name? Both mention things coming to an end. They also both mention war and "sailing across the sea". Coincidence? Read Pink Floyd's lyrics.

General CommentDude, you have NO IDEA how underrated this song is!!! I heard it once and it the riff stuck with me, and it took me a solid week to find it...apparently this thought of as a shitty song? I think it's fucking fantastic! The guits are so tight and trebly they sound like synthesizers.

General CommentBest off FotD (next to Afraid to Shoot Strangers, Be Quick or Be Dead and the title track). To me, it's either about the Vietnam War or perhaps it's using the Vietnam War as an allegory for a bildungsroman?